SAR received the call for a helicopter evacuation from the group’s spot device — an emergency beacon — around 4 p.m. yesterday.

A SAR team located the woman roughly 300 metres down the cliff face, clinging to a small, steep ledge.

“We believe she fell about 100 feet, with impact, but we found her about 300 feet from the top of the cliff. She was still on a rope but in a very precarious position in a little crook of the rock.”

Rescuers could not safely reach the woman with a basket due to space and the 75 per cent slope of the ledge, Jephson said.

“The decision was to have our two rescuers fly in [at the end of the longline].”

Contact was made without incident and all three were lifted to the cliff summit.

“We met up with her friends and our gear, transferred her over to a spine board, got her onto oxygen, put her inside the helicopter and flew her down to the awaiting ambulance,” Jephson said.

This was the first longline rescue by Terrace SAR since the previous helicopter partner company left the area around 2003. Now connected with Great Slave Helicopters SAR received its long-line rescue certification only last March.

“The team is elated they were able to put their skills to use and save somebody,” Jephson said. “Without our partnerships, the military would have to come in with a helicopter from [CFB] Comox, and I’m afraid to think how long that could have taken.”